On Movies & Movie-Watching: No, I Didn’t Watch the 94th Academy Awards Last Night. And Yeah, I Missed the ‘Slap Seen Around the World’….

Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s early afternoon here in Lithia, Florida, on Monday, March 28, 2022. It’s a warm spring day in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, the temperature is 79˚F (26˚C) under sunny skies. With humidity at 53% and the wind blowing from the west-northwest at 8 MPH (12 KM/H), the feels-like temperature is 77˚F (25˚C). Today’s forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 85˚F (29˚C). Tonight, skies will be partly cloudy. The low will be 57˚F (14˚C).

I did not watch the 94^th Academy Awards telecast last night; I didn’t want to, even though this year I saw at least three of the nominated films (Don’t Look Up, Being the Ricardos, and West Side Story) and thus had at least one “horse in the race” this awards season. I did see, online, some of the winners and was happy to see that West Side Story won one Academy Award (Ariana DeBose for Best Supporting Actress), but other than that, I was not personally invested in any of the other winners, so I would have been bored out of my mind.

I have not watched the Oscars telecast in years; it usually runs too long for those of who live in the Eastern Time Zone, and as I grow older, I find it harder and harder to stay awake past 11 PM unless I am overly excited, upset, or nervous. There’s also the fact that oftentimes I have not seen any of the nominees – so I have no incentive to watch – or, like this year, I have reasons to not want to watch, such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS or “the Academy”) to not include the Best Film Score category in the televised program. (The Academy still gave the Oscar for Best Original Score to Hans Zimmer, but it was not part of the show.)

So, yes, I missed the “everyone’s talking about this” moment when Will Smith (who won the Oscar for Best Actor in King Richard) slapped Chris Rock on live TV after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith – Will’s wife – and her issues with alopecia.

Here’s how Time magazine reporters Andrew R. Chow and  Eliana Docterman sum the Slap Seen Around the World:

In an instantly historic and infamous Oscars moment, Will Smith attacked Chris Rock onstage after Rock made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith.

Rock, presenting Best Documentary, made a joke about Pinkett-Smith’s buzzcut, saying he looked forward to seeing her in G.I. Jane II. But Pinkett-Smith has talked publicly about her struggles with hair loss caused by alopecia. Smith immediately took offense to the joke, approaching Rock onstage, slapping him, and then saying to him, “Keep your wife’s name out my f-cking mouth.”

Do I regret not watching the Oscars this year?

While I do wish I had seen Ariana DeBose as she accepted her statuette for her dynamic performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, I will just quote Edith Piaf and say, Non, je ne regrette rien.

Well, that brings us to the end of another blog post here in A Certain Point of View, Too. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.  

Source: The Best, Worst, and Wildest Moments from the 2022 Oscars, Time, January 28, 2022